The Price Tag

“I know you both don’t see eye to eye,” said the Director looking at the two journalists.

“That’s an understatement,” said Lindsey as she glared at her counterpart from the rival media organization.

Mike sat across from her around the table, on which a hologram of planet Earth hovered above the interactive tabletop. The Director of Intelligence had rendered schematics of the Dyson Rings- a series of massive circular structures surrounding the planet.

“I assure you,” the Director continued, “that I wouldn’t have called you here if this wasn’t important.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand why you're showing us this,” Mike said, doing his best to ignore his rival across the table.

“What a shocker,” said Lindsey.

“Is this about the Drop Bear thing?” Mike finally said turning toward her.

She rolled her eyes. The term Drop Bear journalism had gone viral after Mike had done a piece on Lindsey’s reports about reforestation efforts in the outback. He called her facts “as real as a drop bear.”

“If you could both focus for a moment,” said the Director turning to the hologram. “As you can see, Elpis appeared to have created the Rings, but nobody understood why at the time. There wasn’t anything that anyone could do to stop her either. Not that anybody cared at that point- humanity was on its last legs, and beggars can’t be choosers.”

Every child had been taught the story. In 2043, at the height of the Robot Wars when humanity faced certain doom, Elpis was released. She was plan B. The intelligent agent had been created for one sole purpose: save humanity at all costs.

Unleashing a conscious artificial life with absolute control of nearly every major sector that kept humans alive was controversial, to say the least, but when the nukes started falling on everyone’s heads, there was no choice left. Elpis was humanity’s last hope.

“She created new technologies, medicines, industrial processes, sciences- everything the survivors needed to live and thrive after the war,” said the Director. “The environment was cleaned up, even those that had been hit with nuclear weapons. Diseases cured. Hunger eliminated. The climate stabilized. Conflicts subsided all around the world. It was a miracle. In the last minute of humanity’s last hour upon the stage, we made it through one of the tightest existential spots we have found ourselves in. Now, look around you, we’re living in the best of times. Every single major difficulty facing us has been eliminated. We’re free to argue about matters like deadly koala bears and eucalyptus trees.”

Lindsey crossed her arms and sighed.

“Why have you brought us here?” she said curtly to the Director.

“For years we didn’t know how Elpis had managed to perform such a feat,” he said as if reading from an internal dialog. “We understood that the Rings were a crucial part of the puzzle, but try as we might, we could not figure out the function of the impenetrable structures. For her part, Elpis would not divulge her secrets, and then she went to sleep.”

Mike stood up. “You mean to tell us that Elpis has awakened? She’s been silent for nearly a century.”

“Not quite so silent. She speaks sometimes, but it’s all nonsense, as if she’s talking in her sleep or something. Usually, the transmission is all garbled, but this time was different.”

“What did she say?”

“Her voice was clear,” the Director said. “She requested a reconvening of the World Minister’s office, UNO Parliamentary Chiefs, and military leaders. Only the top brass attended that meeting. As director of intelligence services, I was one of them. Elpis told us that the purpose of the meeting was to provide us with more information on the Dyson Rings. I’ll spare you the technical details because I don’t understand them well myself. In essence, the rings are not factories like we initially thought. They’re more like warehouses existing in multiple spatial dimensions. Elpis did not design them herself but simply followed the instructions of the manufacturer.”

Lindsay was about to say something, but then she fell silent.

“So everything that Elpis used to save humanity came from in there?” asked Mike.

The Director cocked his head sideways. “It's more complex than that, but in essence, yes. The concepts are beyond my understanding, as I said, but it all boils down to multi-dimensional knowledge blocks with the capacity for industrial output.”

Lindsey leaned on the table. “But who put them there to begin with? Who's the manufacturer?”

“We don’t know,” said the Director. “What we do know is that all those products and processes that Elpis relied on to save humanity did not come free of charge, like we first assumed. They came with a cost, and we did not find out about it until a week ago when Elpis woke up.”

“You mean she made a deal all on her own? What was the price tag?”

The Director waved his hand and zoomed in on the south Pacific.

“Australia,” he said.

“What!?” said Lindsey slamming her hands on the table. “What do you mean, Australia.”

“This is a joke, right?” said Mike with a stunned look of disbelief. “So, these aliens or inter-dimensional beings who saved humanity from extinction want Australia as payback?”

“That is crazy,” said Lindsey. “But why Australia?”

The Director shrugged. “They wanted much more than that. As far as their reasons are concerned, the continent has some of the biggest deposits of minerals like gold, iron, lead, nickel, uranium, and so on. Maybe it has something to do with that, or who knows what else. Your guess is as good as ours.”

“This is outrageous,” said Mike. “People will have none of it. Where will they go?”

“We’re in talks with various countries, like Canada, and some Martian colonies,” said the Director, “but we’ll worry about that later. We now have to tell and prepare the world, Aussies in particular. I would ask you to soften the blow by putting aside your partisanship and help citizens get through this latest challenge, but I know that’d be more difficult than moving millions of people out of a continent.”

“Nobody’s going to accept this,” said Lindsey, licking her lips, anticipating the conflicts to come. “You just can’t throw people out of their homes and not expect some push-back!”

“Preparations are already underway,” said the Director. “Elpis can be very determined and efficient when she puts her mind to something, as you well know. We have one year to clear out the continent.”

“People will go mental when they find out,” said Mike.

“Which is the reason why you’re here. Consider this your scoop, or leak, or whatever you want to call it.”

The Director stood up.

“But what do you want us to tell the public?” Lindsey asked him.

“That is entirely up to you, but I recommend you tell the truth,” he said and left the room.

Mike and Lindsey were silent staring at the hologram of Australia hovering over the table.

“It looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the press room,” said Mike with a twisted little smile.

“I’ll be sure to DROP by and say hi,” said Lindsey, grabbing her purse.

She stood up and left. Her heels echoing down the hall.

Mike smiled and grabbed his briefcase.

Above the table, the holographic Earth continued spinning slowly on its axis within the Rings.

Images generated by @litguru using Generative Art software

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